2009 Submission Guidelines
Fic submission is now open, and will continue until midnight EST on August 9th. Don't worry if you're still writing, you're very welcome to wait until the 9th to submit your story. If anyone completes their submission earlier and would like to submit early so they don't need to be worried about the deadline on the day though, you're more than welcome to.
If, however, anyone has just realised that they won't make the deadline, you need to contact us now. If we haven't received a fic or an explanation of why you need to drop out before midnight on the 9th, you may be banned from future rounds! Explanations are accepted at mod discretion, so don't expect to contact us super close to the deadline to say you got busy studying or similar, and then not be penalised. If there's a problem that you're already aware of, contact us right now. Remember, you can submit before the 9th this year, so take advantage of that if that date or the days around it are likely to be particularly busy for you.
Now, there are two parts to submission this year. First:
HEADERS
Simply copy the following into the top of your text file, and fill out each line as appropriate.
Subject: "Story title" by yourusername
Title:
Author:
Recipient:
Pairing(s)/Character(s): (Just list the pairing OR gen character combination as requested, no need to list any supporting characters, etc.)
Rating: (British, US, and fan-rated systems are all acceptable, but please include a link when using a fan-rating.)
Warnings: (pursuant to the recent 'warnings wank', please see the details below.*)
Disclaimer: (A standard disclaimer, if you don't normally use one, would include something like the following: Grey's Anatomy and its characters do not belong to me, and this a non-profit fanwork.)
Author's Notes: (Acknowledge and thank your beta readers, and credit any additional sources you may have used in your work, such as song lyrics you may have used for a title, etc., plus any other notes you feel are necessary.)
Summary:
The text of your story goes here.
*Warnings: please warn for any of the 'biggies' such as mental illness, rape/non-con/dub-con, underage sex, excessive violence, and character death. Things such as slash/homosexual content, angst, etc. do not need warnings. Please write 'none' if you have nothing to warn for, or 'I do not give warnings' if you prefer not to warn at all. If you're in doubt, please feel free to email the mods to discuss whether an element of your story should be warned for.
CODING AND SUBMITTING
If you have any questions, feel free to email us or jump into the comments of this post with them. Remember, you can submit your story immediately if it's ready, or anytime between now and midnight EST on August 9th.
If, however, anyone has just realised that they won't make the deadline, you need to contact us now. If we haven't received a fic or an explanation of why you need to drop out before midnight on the 9th, you may be banned from future rounds! Explanations are accepted at mod discretion, so don't expect to contact us super close to the deadline to say you got busy studying or similar, and then not be penalised. If there's a problem that you're already aware of, contact us right now. Remember, you can submit before the 9th this year, so take advantage of that if that date or the days around it are likely to be particularly busy for you.
Now, there are two parts to submission this year. First:
HEADERS
Simply copy the following into the top of your text file, and fill out each line as appropriate.
Subject: "Story title" by yourusername
Title:
Author:
Recipient:
Pairing(s)/Character(s): (Just list the pairing OR gen character combination as requested, no need to list any supporting characters, etc.)
Rating: (British, US, and fan-rated systems are all acceptable, but please include a link when using a fan-rating.)
Warnings: (pursuant to the recent 'warnings wank', please see the details below.*)
Disclaimer: (A standard disclaimer, if you don't normally use one, would include something like the following: Grey's Anatomy and its characters do not belong to me, and this a non-profit fanwork.)
Author's Notes: (Acknowledge and thank your beta readers, and credit any additional sources you may have used in your work, such as song lyrics you may have used for a title, etc., plus any other notes you feel are necessary.)
Summary:
The text of your story goes here.
*Warnings: please warn for any of the 'biggies' such as mental illness, rape/non-con/dub-con, underage sex, excessive violence, and character death. Things such as slash/homosexual content, angst, etc. do not need warnings. Please write 'none' if you have nothing to warn for, or 'I do not give warnings' if you prefer not to warn at all. If you're in doubt, please feel free to email the mods to discuss whether an element of your story should be warned for.
CODING AND SUBMITTING
- All files must be PLAIN TEXT. That's the .txt format, which you can create in TextPad on a Windows computer, or TextEdit on a Mac. You can also save your files from Microsoft Word in Plain Text format.
- We must have received the above plain text file attached to an email at greysexchange@gmail.com by midnight on August 9th. You will not be submitting via the community this year.
- Please write the subject line of your submission email in the following way: GX09 Submission - Writer: Yourusername - Recipient: Theirusername. For example, one email might have a subject line: GX09 Submission - Writer: Shopfront - Recipient: Milk_and_glass. This will make it easier for us to track incoming submissions, and help unsure your story isn't lost in the mods inbox.
- Please be careful if you use a program other than Word or TextPad/Edit to write in and need to copy your story over to another program to save as .txt. Sometimes quote marks, ellipsis' and other punctuation marks might copy over and display correctly on your screen but not truly be plain text, and then they could open up with character errors when we receive your file. If you're not very comfortable or familiar with working with different formats, try to submit your story as early as possible just in case we have to ask you to resubmit because of this sort of problem.
- Please include any emphasis or bolding, etc., in the body of your text with html codes. If you're used to using the rich-text mode, then text or text will give you italic'd text, text or text will give you bolded text. We will not correct or put in html in the body of your story for you, nor will we fiddle with rich-text mode, so you'll need to put in the codes before sending the file to us.
- While we'll quickly proofread the html in the headers for any particularly obvious errors, we will simply strip out any code in the body of the story if there are errors in it. We'll also ask for a resubmission if the headers are particularly error-filled. So please, take a moment to check your html code before you send!
If you have any questions, feel free to email us or jump into the comments of this post with them. Remember, you can submit your story immediately if it's ready, or anytime between now and midnight EST on August 9th.